Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Its been a pretty good year for head pointing so far with some quick satisfying ascents of Apophenia, Once Upon A Time In The South West & Do You Know Where Your Children Are? And so it feels a bit lately that I’ve needed to mix it up again and do some on sighting and a bit of sport climbing to get the strength up again.

Recently this is exactly what I’ve been doing and what better way to start than with wild man Nick Bullock on the wonderfully soft and fragile Red Walls at Gogarth. Now I've climbed a fair bit at Gogarth and it really is one of the most magical places in Britain to seek adventure, but I’d never climbed at Red Walls before and with the bird ban finally lifted we were both keen to get involved.

We warmed up on the Joe Brown classic Left Hand Red Wall E3 5c, 5c. Nick lead the 1st pitch, cackling and chatting his way up the soft loose bands of cheese between the hard red quartzite – a man truly in his natural habitat, dancing his way up the brittle flakes and keyed in blocks with ease. I then took the controls for the top pitch. A Gogarth beauty laced with jugs that you never really want to pull on that hard, and consequently just end up squeezing as an out let for the nerves. Yeah its always good to do a warm up for the head rather than the arms on rock like this, just to re-familiarise yourself with what you can pull on and what you cant, to coax out the relaxed frame of mind. By the time I reached the top I was fully into the swing of things and it was time to step it up a notch.

The obvious choices next were either Schittlegruber, a Paul Pritchard E5 6b or the classic Heart Of Gold E4 6a, 6a. We decided on Schittlegruber, abed back into the belay ledge on Left Hand Red Wall and I took the lead. It was a very windy, blustery and showery day, and we had waited for some time before abing in for a shower to clear. Now as I was setting off from the belay, another down pour came along and made progress tricky with soaking wet holds. It reminded me of Skye Wall back in June when I had launched out on the big pitch I the rain only to retreat. This time however, the climbing was much easier and the shower passed quite quickly and by the time I reached the crux, the rock was quite dry again. It was such a change from the recent climbing I had been doing, hanging about looking for gear and holds, checking for looseness. Although the climbing is easy, it was still a satisfying route to do. Just the right difficulty having never climbed on Red Wall before and not on sighted for quite a while.

Nick had brought along photographer Lukas Warzecha to get some shots, and after getting some snaps of me in the top groove of Schittlegruber, Nick decided that he wanted shots of the same route for his blog. So after doing it once……we abed back in and did it all again. Doing laps on a Red Wall E5, brilliant. Its always an unconventional day climbing with Nick Bullock.

As always, just as it starts to get good it was time to leave north wales. 1 day at Gogarth just isn’t enough to get into the flow properly and start to test yourself on some of the harder classics…but this is what keeps you psyched, and itching to get back for more.

More recently I’ve been indulging in the novel concept of actually being at home and climbing at my local crags. Cheddar south side has been closed for the 2-month summer tourist invasion and so north side has been the only option. Lion Rock and The Remnant boast some short hard sporty routes about as opposite to Red Walls as you can get. Strong fingers are the order of the day here, and as my 10 little digits are in need of some serious bolstering for a couple of trad projects further affield, this is where I’ve been lurking. A quick 1 day ascent of Homegrown 8a+ put a smile on my face. This route was made famous as the hardest on sight 1st ascent in Britain by Ian Vickers in 1997. Wad.

Next day I popped out to Avon gorge with Dick Hall (of Dick’s Climbing renown) to enjoy the delights of a runout E6 6b Pink Ginsane. This is a classic of the gorge and although it gets a trad grade, it’s really a sport route with a mighty runout on it, weighing in at about 7b+. If you fall from the top of the runout you’re looking at a 60 footer. A safe 60 footer, but its still enough to get the pulse racing! I’ve been on this route before last December with the late great Jonathan Woods (it was the last time I climbed with him), and actually on sighted past the runout crux and then got tunnel vision and went the wrong way and blew it a couple of feet from the top. Dick too has ‘previous’ with this route so there were a couple of accounts that needed closing. Avon gorge in the summer heat is not an easy place to adhere to rock. It’s a greasy ming fest. And so like true Englishmen, Dick and I went for it, without warming up, on a ridiculously hot summer evening and frankly got our comeuppance. An hour or so later however, when it had gone into the shade, it was a totally different story and I polished off the route, remembering good times with the Woodster all the way. A South West classic.

Pink Ginsane - Dec 2010
Photo: Ged Desforges

Pink Ginsane - Dec 2010
Photo: Ged Desforges

Pink Ginsane - Dec 2010
Photo: Ged Desforges

A couple of days later I went to have a look at Matt Cox’s Shadow Walker 8a+ at Lion rock in Cheddar. On paper this route should suit me, being not too steep and very fingery and technical. 1st go on it I struggled with a couple of the moves up high, but came back the next day and suddenly found myself at the last move on red point only to blow. I went back a couple of days later and sent it. I could get into this bolt clippin malarkey.